V. I. Lenin

Report on the Current Situation at theAll-Russia Conference of Front and Rear Military Organisations of the R.S.D.L.P. (B.)

JUNE 20 (JULY 3), 1917{1}

BRIEF NEWSPAPER REPORT

Published:Novaya ZhiznNo. 54, June 21 (July 4), 1917.

      Printed from theNovaya Zhizntext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 41,

      pages439.2-440.1.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2004

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Atthe morning sitting, Lenin gave a report on the current
situation. He noted the difference between the situation today and that
during the Party’s April Conference. At that time, the stand of the various
socialist parties had still hardly crystallised. Only now, in the present
conditions, and in the light of the events that have just taken place, has
the real political face of the Mensheviks and the S.R.s been revealed. But
the petty bourgeoisie, without beingsocialist, may turn out to be really democratically minded. Viewing the
S.R. and Menshevik masses from that stand point, we must give them credit
for consistent democratism. But that cannot be said of their leaders, which
is why we find that there is a yawning gulf between the S.R. and the
Menshevik masses, on the one hand, and their leaders, on the other. The
leaders of these masses have been gradually shedding not only their
socialism, but their democratism as well. This will be seen in the attitude
of the socialist ministers to the three vital issues of the moment.

Onthe question of land, the socialist section of the government has
clearly diverged from the views of the peasantry, and is helping the
landowners to keep their lands at their disposal. The second touchstone of
the socialist ministers’ democratism is their attitude to local
self-government. It is an elementary democratic proposition that the local
power must be elected by the people them selves, but on this point there
have been numerous conflicts between the Provisional Government and the
local organs of self-government, and the socialist section of the ministry
has been an active fighter against these truly democratic
principles. Finally, the third question is the offensive. The socialist
Kerensky has managed to secure what the patent imperialist Guchkov had been
unable to do.

Werevolutionary Social-Democrats must direct our activity towards
raising the class consciousness of the democratic masses. That is why we
must relentlessly expose these former leaders of petty-bourgeois democracy,
pointing out to democracy the only way along which the revolutionary
proletariat will march ahead of it.

{1}Lenin’s report, which was central in the work of the All-Russia
Conference of Front and Rear Military Organisations of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.),
has been preserved in two variants: as recorded by a correspondent ofNovaya Zhizn, which published it the following day, June 21
(July 4), 1917, and by M. S. Kedrov (see his reminiscences “The All-Russia
Conference of Military Organisations of the R.S.D.L.P.[B.]” in the bookVelikaya Oktyabrskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Revolutsia. Sbornik
vospominany uchastnikov revolutsii v Petrograde i Moskve[The Great
October Socialist Revolution. A Collection of Reminiscences by Participants
in the Revolution in Petrograd and Moscow], Moscow, 1957, pp. 77–79).

TheAll-Russia Conference of Front and Rear Military Organisations
of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)was held in Petrograd from June 16 to 23
(June 29 to July 6), 1917. It was attended by 107 delegates from 43 front
and 17 rear military Bolshevik organisations uniting almost 26,000 members
of the Party. It was called by the Organising Bureau of the Central
Committee Military Organisation. On its agenda were these questions:
reports from the localities; attitude to the resolutions of the Seventh
(April) Conference; the present situation; organisation of power and the
Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies; the war, the peace and the
offensive; the agrarian question and others.

Leningave reports on the present situation and on the agrarian
question. The conference recognised the need to replace the standing army
by armed workers’ battalions of the Red Guard placed at the disposal of the
elected workers’ organisations, and to replace the police by the people’s
militia (seeK.P.S.S. v resolutsiyakh..., Part I,
pp. 354–67). The conference decided to regard the newspaperSoldatskaya Pravdaas the Central Organ of the military
organisations of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.), approved the draft Rules for the
Military Organisation and elected the All-Russia Central Bureau of Military
Organisations consisting of M. S. Kedrov, N. V. Krylenko, V. I. Nevsky,
N. I. Podvoisky and others. The conference was of great importance in
strengthening the ties between the proletariat and the soldier mass and
helped to extend the work of the Bolsheviks among the soldiers.

p. 439